RCSEd Welcomes Secretary of State’s Announcement that Revalidation will start early December 2012

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) has welcomed today's announcement from the Secretary of State, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP that revalidation will start on 3 December 2012.

The revalidation announcement means that every doctor practising in the UK will be subject to regular checks to help improve the quality of patient care. The new system of checks - known as revalidation - will be run by the General Medical Council (GMC) and marks the biggest change in how doctors are regulated for more than 150 years.

It promises to be the most comprehensive scheme of its kind anywhere in the world, with the UK's 230,000 licensed doctors expected to show they are keeping up to date and are fit to practise.

The Secretary of State for Health, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP said:

"Doctors save lives every day and making sure they are up to speed with the latest treatments and technologies will help them save even more. This is why a proper system of revalidation is so important."

The new system will be based on an annual appraisal and the information doctors will collect about their practice, including feedback from patients, doctors, nurses and other colleagues. The UK will be the first country to introduce such a system covering all its doctors. To keep their licence to practise, doctors will be required to revalidate on a regular basis. Once the scheme is up and running this will normally be every five years.

Commenting on this, Vice President of RCSEd, Professor George Youngson said:

"Preparation for revalidation has been on-going since 2007. RCSEd welcomes the opportunity for its surgeons to now display their competence through an appraisal process which leads ultimately to revalidation and therefore supports the announcement by the Secretary of State that revalidation is to commence."

The GMC will start to tell doctors their first revalidation dates in December and expects most doctors to have revalidated by March 2016.

For further information about the GMC announcement please visit theGMC website.

For further RCSEd membership information on Revalidation, please click here.

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